Wherever you go, there you are.

I blogged last year about making hay- feeling nostalgic and missing my farmer father, mowing a small patch of my world with my little red tractor. Ah... the romance of the west.

Whatever.

This year I have serious grass issues. The brome grass has grown over my head for the second year in a row and it chokes out all other grasses- native or introduced.  At that height, it eventually lays down and blessedly, dies in the fall.  But I no longer live in a climate where three feet of raked leaves rot down to four inches of compost overnight. And while I enjoyed the flower gardens of my previous home, even there I had no interest in growing grass, having a lawn or raking leaves off of it.

I came out west with the naive vision of low maintenance, maybe some native flowers.  No grass. I certainly didn't want seven acres of brome grass.  I knew what brome was- I grew up on a farm. But had no idea it was such an invasive, aggressive species of grass. And out here seven acres isn't big enough to bother making hay.  Add my dips and ditches and not one even wants to even mow it. Including me.  I may have the possibility of horses grazing soon but they won't eat tall, woody brome.

And way out west where the buffalo roam, five feet of thick grass, matted down several seasons in a row-  makes tinder, not compost.  Dry and dangerous, not damp and beneficial. I came west with one vision of what life would look like. The reality is- I'm still dealing with grass.

In moving around the world and now, as I transition from one life season to another- I've learned something.

You bring you with you, wherever you go. 

If you have "grass" issues in one place, unresolved baggage in the previous season- it comes with you.  God seems to be more interested in our emotional wholeness than we are.  So He allows us to pull that load around until we chose or are forced by circumstances to examine ourselves.  Take off that pack and examine what comes out.

This is probably a lame example but take my problems with grass. Or, as Rodney Dangerfield might say in my place, "Take my grass. Please!"   Is is more than just grass? My neighbor, Mr. My House is Safe Because I Mow Four Acres of Lawn, tells me my grass is a fire hazard. It may make my house less defensible- a dire, yet true threat out here.  I get it.

But I hate being like everyone else. I didn't want the perfect suburban lawn- it just worked out that our house wasn't visible from the street and no one ever forced us to mow the ditch by the creek up front. My husband would have loved a nice lawn and said so, but since I was the gardener and keeper of the lawn, I ignored him. Oh, I mowed the stuff but none of that fertilizing and weed killing and thatching and whatever. Now it seems petty, self-centered. A tactic to get my own way.

I've moved. I'm in a new season of life.  I look out cabin windows and love these sweeps of luscious grass waving in the breeze. It says I'm easy going, natural, earthy. It says I enjoy the prairie the way God intended.  Unlike my neighbors. And also that I'm choosing to forget that prairies only renew by periodic fires. That I'm ignoring the fact that one day there will be a fire close to me- the Black Hills national forest is full of trees killed by the pine beetle infestation. I can look over my amber waves and see dead trees.  Otherwise known as forest fire fuel.

I've changed my location,  entered a new season and I still want my own way. I don't want to do what others do- sometimes to my own detriment.  Maybe it's not about grass.  Maybe it's about God molding my natural inclinations to become more like Him. More willing to be part of a community, less the "You have to do it your way, don't you?" individual.  Oh, I'll always want to follow the different drummer and that was His design for me too.  But I can enjoy being unique, special, odd, creative, off the beaten track with my life.... and still have short grass.  I don't have to be afraid that my mowed lawn will dampen my personality or even creates some impression.  Really, at this stage in life- who cares what the neighbors think?

But when it comes time for protecting my home, keeping us all safer, not being a nuisance if there was a fire, bending my will to the betterment of my community, letting my creative light shine in another way.... mowing my grass is a small price to pay.

How about you? 

Life is always changing, we never know what tomorrow will bring.  

Travel light. 

Figure out some stuff. 

What is it that makes you dig in your heels? 

It'll be waiting for you in that next season!